The Retreat by David Bergen Page B

about Dad? I can see what’s happening.” She was crying, and she only knew this because she felt the tears on her face. She wiped at them with her hand and abruptly turned and left. Her mother called after her several times, but Lizzy kept going, out into the dim light of the clearing towards her own cabin.
    The next morning, at breakfast, her mother sat at the far end of the table, close to the Doctor, with Fish at her side. Her mother cut up Fish’s eggs with a fork and leaned into him, showing him the utmost care. Lizzy ate quickly and then walked out, meeting her father at the doorway as he was entering. He said good morning to her, and though she responded, she did so grudgingly, feeling resentment at his ignorance.
    Later, as she sat unhappily on the porch of her cabin, she noticed Raymond’s pickup parked near the Hall. She watched for him, and when he didn’t appear she walked up towards thekitchen and just as she was about to go in, the screen door swung open and he was there. He stopped and then his mouth lifted slightly on one side and he said, “Lizzy.”
    His voice, and the way he said her name so lightly, opened something in her and she said that Fish had nearly drowned the day before, down by the pond, and that everyone was blaming her and maybe it was true that it was her fault. She stopped, looked at Raymond, and said, “Why are you smiling like that?”
    “ Is he dead?” Raymond asked.
    “No.”
    “So, you saved him. Good for you. If I were drowning I’d want you close by.”
    As Raymond walked past her towards the pickup, she followed him and said, “Where you going?”
    “The golf course. Work.”
    “I had fun. Up at your place.”
    He nodded. “It was good.” Then he said that Nelson sometimes said the wrong thing. He could be an asshole.
    “Oh,” she said. “I didn’t think so.” She leaned towards him and then took a step back. “We could maybe see each other again. With or without Fish. He doesn’t have to come along. You know?”
    Raymond had propped himself against the pickup. One leg bent, boot planted against the door. He studied Lizzy and said that she probably had parents who didn’t want her being seen with someone like him.
    “Are you dangerous?” she said, and made a fist and pushed it against his stomach, not hard, but enough to feel the coil ofhis body, his solid mass. She laughed, as if to hide her own surprise at this sudden boldness.
    He said that he wasn’t, actually. Dangerous. He reached up a hand as if he wanted to touch her shoulder, her arm, or maybe her hip. Then his hand fell and he nodded and climbed into his pickup, waving to her as he backed up. She stood motionless, thinking about how close he’d been to touching her.
    All that afternoon, she took care of Fish. Her father had taken her mother to the hospital in the late morning to have a smaller cast put on. Lizzy had seen them leave, her mother talking and laughing in the front seat, as if Lizzy’s words of the night before, and the meaning behind those words, had not affected her. There was a brief thunderstorm in the afternoon, during which Fish napped on Lizzy’s bed, his arms thrown back over his head, his brow wet with sweat. William and Everett had found an old Monopoly game and were playing in the Hall. Everett had seemed happy and for this she was grateful.
    The Molls had left that day, early, before anyone else was awake, and later in the morning, Everett had told Lizzy, when they were alone on the sand by the pond, about his experience with Dee Dee. He said that he was to blame for the family leaving. Lizzy had not been surprised at Everett’s honesty, though she had been amazed at how clear he was in telling his story, how matter-of-fact, as if what had happened to him was not at all sexual. She thought then that he might not have understood what Dee Dee had wanted. She told him that theMolls had left because they had not liked the Retreat. It had had nothing to do with him and Dee